He had a name out of Grimm's Fairy tales, and his passion was a building out of King Arthur.

Edgar Dinkelspiel has been dead 10 years now, but the historic Jersey Shore church he saved as a museum has a new life.

For 45 years, Dinkelspiel propped up efforts to keep the Church of the Presidents in Elberon from collapsing under the weight of neglect.

This is not an exaggeration. Dinkelspiel warned visitors about the softest spots on the rotted floorboards, or worse, the imposing tower might sway and spit stained-glass windows down on their heads.

But it was his baby, decrepitude and all. Dinkelspiel showed off the Tiffany windows, the Stick Style pews and woodwork and, of course, the plaques of the presidents, like pictures of his grandchildren.

In all, there were seven.

Presidents, that is.

Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson. All worshipped at church, officially named St. James Chapel, the seaside branch of St. James Episcopal Church in Long Branch. All were in office for part or all of the time they attended St. James, except Grant, who was a former president.

No building at the Jersey Shore -- from Sandy Hook to Cape May -- better embodied how high-society played in our sands following the Civil War and right up through the Gilded Age.

The Church of the Presidents was built in 1879, at a time when Long Branch, specifically the Elberon section near the Deal border, was a favored summer retreat for the nation's industrial and political elite. Elberon itself was laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted, the Central Park designer.

The chapel was financed by George Pullman, the builder of the famed railroad cars, Anthony Drexel, the Philadelphia banker, and George W. Childs, a Philadelphia newspaper publisher, who wanted a church closer to their summer cottages (mansions to the rest of us).

Most of those cottages are now gone, including Grant's summer White House and Wilson's seasonal home. Most have been replaced by ostentatious faux Versailles or modern mansions that look like geometrical montages. And, of course, condos, condos, condos of the hi-rise and townhouse variety.

"Without Mr. Dinkelspiel, this church, too, would be gone," said Joan Schnorbus, a member of the church museum board, as a new plaque was unveiled outside the church on Ocean Avenue last week.

When Edgar Dinkelspiel discovered the Church of the Presidents in 1953, he was determined to not let it become another lost cause, another case of New Jersey's indifference to history.

The church had been deconsecrated, a death sentence for the building, and the dwindling number of parishioners were resigned to its demolition. The property, one block from the beach, was to be returned to the heirs of Drexel, Pullman and Childs.

Dinkelspiel and a lawyer named Barry Sandler, stepped up and tracked down the property owners, and it was donated for preservation. But that was only the beginning of the battle.

"He tried to take on the building by himself," said Dinkelspiel's niece, Karen Van Hise-Gunthner, now a trustee of the church museum.

He held art shows in the church hall and on the grounds to raise funds. He scared up volunteer craftsmen. But no matter how fast he worked, the building decayed faster. In the 1990s, with Dinkelspiel aging and ailing, it looked as though his beloved church, too, would be done in by time.

But all those years of work raised awareness. People who admired his passion, and that of his wife, Florence, who fought for the church for nine years after her husband's death, rallied to the restoration cause. Grants were applied for, donations came in from people in building supply.

A $342,410 grant from the New Jersey Historic Trust, plus $98,611 from the National Park Service's Save America's treasures, got the building stabilized. The windows, plaques, pews and floorboards were put in storage. A new cedar-shake roof was put on. A concrete slab was poured to shore-up the foundation and anchor 10 large L-brackets, which stabilize the walls and tower.

The Monmouth County Historical Commission has donated nearly $25,000 for repairs to the belfry and porches. Siperstein's paint stores supplied the colors, which were matched to the original: Olive Shadow, British Brown and Inca Gold.

"A building like this is part of our collective history," said Todd Katz, a Siperstein's co-owner. "Long Branch is very diverse, but the history belongs to everybody."